John Alvarez

SXRD and hook up

I got the Sony SXRD 60XBR2 last week. At the same time I ordered to Oppo 970. Now I have them both in house and WOW. My question is hooking it up to a reciever with no HDMI input? Do I just use the optical out to my reciever? I'm so pumped. I was able to get the Sony for $2800.00 on black Friday. Actually I went the Wed. before and then had it price matched so I didn't have to wait in lines...... :-)

Harpozep

Re: SXRD and hook up

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Alvarez I got the Sony SXRD 60XBR2 last week. At the same time I ordered to Oppo 970. Now I have them both in house and WOW. My question is hooking it up to a receiver with no HDMI input? Do I just use the optical out to my receiver? I'm so pumped. I was able to get the Sony for $2800.00 on black Friday. Actually I went the Wed. before and then had it price matched so I didn't have to wait in lines...... :-)

Hey, good price on the SONY. Way to go!
I paid more, but hey, we've enjoyed it for a couple of months

Our Integra receiver also has no HDMI, but has enough work arounds that things usually sound fine with our SXRD 60.


I have the output of our DVD player hooked up via optical to the receiver. The sound is just fine. The sound is also going into the TV via HDMI, so we also can add the TV speakers or just listen to them alone if need be. But if we are watching a DVD, usually the receiver with the surrounds is the way to go.
An example I have of watching DVD with the TV speakers is say, The Adams Family and other older TV sitcoms. Sometimes they just sound better ( more closer to original, but nicer ) coming from the set speakers.

Also, there are some sync problems at times. The TV speakers seem to get the sound out a few milliseconds prior to the receiver. This does not always happen, but seems to depend upon how much processing a given sound track needs. If I set the receiver to stereo, all is in sync with the TV speakers. If I process it in multi channel, that is often where the sync problem shows itself.

I can actually see the lips and sound of the characters not quite lining up at times, but not often.

I also have the output of the TV hooked up to another input on the receiver via another optical cable. This allows whatever is inputted to the TV to come out to the receiver in a digital optical manner. That is all sounds except analog cable channels that Comcast does not have a digital carrier for. But that is another matter.

Now this is where things may get interesting. On pg 53 of the Sony SXRD book, Sony mentions the ability to supposedly correct sync issues between external equipment and the TV. The menu has a spot called "A/V SYNC"
This is only via the optical digital out on the set, and I have yet to really play with it.

I'm guessing it may be the way we have to go rather than splitting the sound separate right from the DVD player . The unified A/V & video signals will all be coming through the HDMI input, but perhaps Sony speeds up the sound path or more likely delays the video processing to keep they sync. I still have to play with it , but if sync becomes an issue, this may help.

Have fun with the TV, it is an ispiring sight!
Heck I even like the "Dumbo ears!"

Best,
Robert

John Alvarez

Re: SXRD and hook up

Since the TV only does a down mix of 2 channel what happens to signal going from the set to an AVR?

Harpozep

Re: SXRD and hook up

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Alvarez Since the TV only does a down mix of 2 channel what happens to signal going from the set to an AVR?

It seems the receiver than plays with the signal and creates a synthetic surround from the signal matrix, or it can be run as simple Dolby stereo. But the preferable way is the direct optical path from DVD player to the receiver.
I had some real lip sync issues last night no matter what I did with the receiver. The only way I got compliance was using the set speakers. This was while using the Comcast box, which I have running analog to the TV and digital direct to the receiver.

I tried to access the A/V SYNC within the Sony's menu, but cannot find it. It resides in the book, but I cannot see it in any menu. I do want to try this option, but am getting frustrated. Perhaps I should just add a subwoofer to the set speakers and give up on surround when this stuff happens?
To much processing = sync problems, that is for sure!

And our Sony set has perhaps a few too many compromises built into it, but it still is a great set, well OK, a very good set...... ( Just frustrated this morning....)

Best,
Robert